Category: Images/Photos

MightyLeaf.com is going to be filed into the Best Of 2009 category. I can’t stop starring at it… The design of the site as a whole, then the details – photography work is just stunning, the navigation is very clean and efficient, the logo fits perfectly. This website is truly is a piece of art.

Check out the navigation, it sits there quietly, out of the way while you are not using it, then when you need to find something just hover over the main categories buttons at the top and a smorgasbord of choices come popping out, so much to choose from!

Also the sub-navigation buttons placed nicely under the main navigation is another level of choices to pick from. In all, they have eliminated many extra clicks for a visitor, turning many of then from just visitors to customers.

As web designers we strive to amaze potential clients with our work and one of the ways to do that is to have a stunning portfolio. We find new ways to hook the visitor, to make him or her remember our site over everyone else.

I’ve seen sliders on portfolio sites before but have never seen one that has been flipped on it’s side and split into four and set on an offset timer. This is pretty cool to look at.

You will notice that this site I am showing here is using Flash to make the cubes flip but after digging around a bit I found a jQuery module that can be used to do the same thing. Check it out here: Easy Slider, you can see the example here: Easy Slider jQuery Plugin Demo. This module will only make one block so to make the same effect like in the site above you will need to stack four of these modules together and time them just right.

Imagination enhanced photos look amazing. Here, on this one it is used as a website header, a beautiful grassy scene with planted ancient nuclear power plant cooling stacks. The shades of green look beautiful on the deep dark greenish-blue background. Very nice illustration.

Here is another image that played with lights. It reminds me a lot of computer games but it captures an idea of freedom and creativity. I really liked how the colors ranged from dark to light across the image and I liked how the woman is immersed in it. I think this is one of those wallpapers which will blow me away when I opened my computer.

I just heard GraphicRiver just launched … the website is a marketplace that provides a way for you to buy graphics, layered Photoshop files, vector graphics, icons and more. This is a great service for web designers, don’t have to spend a bunch of time trying to design things from scratch, now you can get something that already looks good and customize it a bit in Photoshop or Illustrator and it is yours.

The other cool part of GraphicRiver is if you are an artist you can actually sell your own art here and get paid about 40% to 70% of whatever it sells for.

I was looking for some t-shirt designs when I landed with this website with an amazing header. The good part is that it was not colorful. I also don’t think it made a huge effort to catch my eye. It was simple with the soft combination of black, white and red.

The good thing about it is how the header promotes its product without imposing on what the surfer likes to see. It simply shows the model and the t-shirt design. I guess simpler is still better.

Here’s a very cool looking design. Clean, lots of white (gray) space. A touch of Flash brings the design to life. Notice at how a photo of a human makes the website look more alive, more welcoming. Maybe it’s just me…

The combination of a beautiful piece of art and clean design elements, almost an art gallery look here on this website. Perfect look for a web design firm, showing off their creativity and professionalism. Take a look at the crisp and clean navigation tucked over at the top right. As you hover over it the background fades to a hint of brown bringing the button out from the rest.